I am planning on being there. I have never been; seen and heard a lot, so I figured, it was time for me to make an appearance. Can anyone tell me, do I need
to book a room soon, or is it not all that crowded?

Badge registration starts tomorrow, and housing registration starts Tuesday (Feb. 17). Information came out in an e-mail today from GenCon, but if you are
not on the list you can also read it on the GenCon forum: http://community.gencon.c.../19201/214491.aspx#214491

Important points:
GenCon has a new registration system this year (*cross fingers*) so you have to create an account for the new system before you can register for a badge. Of
course you have to get a badge before you can reserve a room through the GenCon housing system. I plan to get my account set up today so that I am
ready for registration and hotel reservations. For more info on the new system, see this page: http://www.gencon.com/200...ttendees/RUBIupdates.aspx

If you want to get a room anywhere near the convention at something approaching a reasonable price, you should plan to go through the GenCon housing system.
The convention rates in most cases are much better than the regular hotel rates you are likely to get between now and August. However, rooms in favorite hotels
go fast. Also, rooms for more people tend to disappear quickly. On the other hand, if you're willing to travel a few more blocks you can possibly get a
better price and have more flexibility about when you make your reservations. It just depends on what is important to you.

I doubt ng will be there unless they start support for 4e. that was the holdup last year if i remember correctly.

As far as room rates and airfares, I have been doing VERY well lately with packaged deals from Orbitz and Cheaptickets.com, so try both before booking
seperately. Make sure you give them the hotel names/locations you like though or else you could be in timbuktoo.

"...In ancient times, hundreds of years before the dawn of history, an ancient race of people... the Druids. No one knows who they were or what they were doing... "

I'm planning on attending again this year. Not sure what specifically I'll be running, but no doubt will be running some old school (A)D&D, both
officially and unofficially, for any that are interested.

tacojohn4547 wrote:
I'm planning on attending again this year. Not sure what specifically I'll be running, but no doubt will be running some old school (A)D&D, both
officially and unofficially, for any that are interested.

This is my first. I am a virgin to GenCon but been playing for so long. How do you get in on a game? I want to see some action. I always
DM....ever since 1978. I need to actually roll up a character. I will there for two days....Friday allday and Saturday all day....and i guess in between.
Direct me.

tacojohn4547 wrote:
I'm planning on attending again this year. Not sure what specifically I'll be running, but no doubt will be running some old school (A)D&D,
both officially and unofficially, for any that are interested.

This is my first. I am a virgin to GenCon but been playing for so long. How do you get in on a game? I want to see some action. I always
DM....ever since 1978. I need to actually roll up a character. I will there for two days....Friday allday and Saturday all day....and i guess in between.
Direct me.

Official, scheduled games (a/k/a Gen Con events) must be pre-registered for in advance of the convention.

Event submissions are being made now (it began in mid-February) by folks that want to run games (prospective DMs) and by groups or sponsoring companies
(Goodman Games, XRP, the Troll Lords, etc.) and will continue through probably the end of March. Gen Con will be sifting through the event submissions, and as
events are approved by them, each event will be assigned an event number and a preliminary location for the con (location - in the convention center or in one
of the nearby hotels, room # or name, and table #). The event submissions include type of game info, rules system or edition, date and times desired for the
event, descriptive info about the game, and other pertinent info.

There will be a week or two between the closing of the event submission period and the opening of event registration (for attendees), during which time the Gen
Con admin folks will finish up processing the event submissions and assigning locations. About a week before the event registration opens up, an event list in
Excel format will be made available at the Gen Con online community boards. This event list lists all of the events that have been scheduled for the con, with
all pertinent data included. This Excel event list is a great tool to get an idea of what games are being offered at GC, and you would be well
advised to kind of sketch out a tentative schedule for yourself with blocks of time for the events you'd like to get into. There's no
guarnatee that you'll get into those events, but if you do your homework ahead of time, at least you'll know what events you'll want to
try to get into.

In early- to mid- April, event registration will go live via the Gen Con registration website. During the event registration, you'll be registering for
events and actually purchasing tickets for those events. (The event ticket prices vary, but usually are pretty nominal.) You'll need to be logged into the
site, if at all possible, when the event reg. goes live as many of the events fill up within the first few hours. Some events fill up within the first 15
minutes of event registration going live! When event reg starts accepting event registrations, you'll want to plug in your first event #, the day and
time, number of tickets wanted, and whatever else they ask for and get that registration (ie, those tickets) into your shopping cart ASAP. You may
want to have back up choices for your event selections jotted down, in case your first choice events fill up before you get your tickets into your shopping
cart. You'll want to repeat this process for each event that you want to try to get into, or each back up event, until you've got your
days as full as you want them.

When you're done with your event registration and you have the tickets in your cart, you'll want to go ahead and get those paid for so that the event
tickets don't get dumped back into the "available" category of events.

When it comes time for the convention and you have your first event coming up, you'll want to take your ticket and badge, as well as any gaming gear you
need (dice, books, pencil, etc.) and make your way to the location of your first event. Give yourself plenty of time to find the assigned room and assigned
table, the nearest pop machine or drinking fountain, the restroom, etc.

Most official games at Gen Con will provide pregen characters, depending upon the adventure being ran. In my experience, the only events where you had to
create a PC were the living campaign events - Living Greyhawk, Living Realms, Living Blackmoor. All other events I've played in or ran provided the
players with equipped and level appropriate pregens.

FWIW, I've ran AD&D games at Gen Con the last three years. Not tooting my own horn or anything, but the official events I had sold out during the
first couple of hours after event registration went live.

Unofficial games are completely off the grid. There's typically no registration involved, no tickets to buy, no mass of people vieing for the same events,
and the location is often undetermined until the last minute. For example, I ran an off grid game for Cassandra, her husband, Masterarchanist and Syk last
year. We started out in one of the game rooms, and ended up in one of the hotel lobbies, rolling dice on one of the lounge area tables.

Sometimes the Necromancer Games fans get together to game, sometimes we get together to game and drink, and sometimes just to drink. I'm sure we'll
organize something again this year - it's now a tradition. You're naturally welcome to join any unofficial games that I might run.

As the milestone dates roll along, I'm sure I'll be posting some more details about the events, both official and unofficial, that I'll be running
again this year.

Dude...I am all in. I will take your advice. I really want to get in on one of these. I cant be there all four days, is that a problem? or do they hand off
characters to others in line? How does that work? I am very interested in official or unofficial gaming. Hook me up man.

Glad to hear you're going to be there this year. We should definately get some gaming time in together. Which days are you going to be able to attend?
(edit: I re-read your earlier post and I see where you said you'd be there all day Friday and all day Saturday.
Sweet!)

Being there for two of the four days isn't a problem - Sunday is actually pretty slow, game wise. You'll certainly should be able to get your fill in
two days of GC. Aside from the Living XYZ events I mentioned before and tournaments, the pregen PCs typically don't carry over from one event to the next.
So, for example, you might play in an event with 4th level PCs during a 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM time slot, then be in a game with 10th level characters for a 2:00
PM to 6:00 PM time slot, and wrap up your day with an event with 2nd level PCs for the 7:00 to 11:00 time slot. And note that the 'time slots'
don't have gaps like I described in my example (between 1:00 and 2:00, for example); they overlap, with new events beginning almost every hour.

You're probably going to see a different DM and a different group of gamers for each unique event you're playing, though if you stick to one type of
event and one rules system (i.e., 1st Edition AD&D) you're likely to see a bit more repetition in some of the gamer faces. Also, the default time
allowance for RPG events is 4 hours. So the vast majority of RPG events at Gen Con stick to a 4 hour schedule. That may seem short, and sometimes it seems
very short. But for the few times you have a bad game experience at a convention, 4 hours can seem a very LONG event.

Drop me a PM and I'll send you last year's event schedule so you can look at it and get an idea of the layout and what types of games you want to play.
Prepare to be overwhelmed!

Tacojohn I am speachless..tears running down both cheeks. Snifff.....dang dude, I cant wait! I am so stoked over this. I will PM. I want to see that
schedule. Getting the chance to try on a few 4-hour stints is awsome. Overwhelm me. If its as good as you make it sound, I will be there every year from here
on out. Ok, so I need to be ready aon the hour this all opens up to pick events. You are DMing right? Do you know what yet? I would like to sit at your
table if we can make that happen. Ok....I will shut up now.

Information obtained from the Gen Con Indy registration site, here:

Snoring Rock wrote:
Tacojohn I am speachless..tears running down both cheeks. Snifff.....dang dude, I cant wait! I am so stoked over this. I will PM. I want to see that
schedule. Getting the chance to try on a few 4-hour stints is awsome. Overwhelm me. If its as good as you make it sound, I will be there every year from here
on out. Ok, so I need to be ready aon the hour this all opens up to pick events. You are DMing right? Do you know what yet? I would like to sit at your table
if we can make that happen. Ok....I will shut up now.

Getting excited about Gen Con is easy to understand; the hard part is waiting until it rolls around every August! The time in between is a
#*$&#!

The Gen Con event schedule will be forthcoming tonight. I couldn't find the event list for 2008 anywhere on my computer or my zip drives, but I have the
event list for 2007 and it's all ready to send your way.

Yes, I will be DMing "a few" official Gen Con events again this year. At this point, it looks like I'll be running 2 or 3 official events
(I'm not scheduling any official games for Sunday). My regular group is a decidedly 1st Edition AD&D group, so when I run games, 1st Edition AD&D
is the rules system of choice. For all of my official events, I'll be using The Seven Shrines of Nav'k-Qar, one of
Expeditious Retreat Press' latest Advanced Adventures modules. The adventure is written for 6 to 8 characters of levels 8-12, so there'll be six to
eight seats available for each of the 4 hour events.

As for unofficial events, nothing has been organized or even discussed yet. (It's too early to make firm plans for unofficial gaming - too many variables
to work out this far in advance.) But, I'll no doubt bring some adventures and pregens along so we can throw a game together whenever the opportunity and
schedules opens up. I'd like to work something original up for some off the grid gaming, but don't know if I'll have time for that.

Last year's game with Cass and crew was on Saturday night. And that night works pretty well for me (it did for all of us). Thursday night is usually
spent trying to catch up with old friends from past cons, and Friday night is the Ennies awards presentation (thou I have always had games scheduled on Friday
night and never felt compelled to attend). And Sunday is pretty chaotic as the dealers are winding down the hall and folks are trying to get checked out of
their hotels and get to the airport or hit the road.

Please forgive me, SR. My memory isn't very good keeping track of who plays what version of the game. What edition of D&D do you play most, 3.5? If
you're up for it, you should try to grab a ticket or two for one of my AD&D events. We usually have a lot of fun with the AD&D events.

I have a copy of the GenCon 2008 schedule as updated in June. If you PM me your e-mail, I'd be happy to send it to you.

Snoring Rock wrote:
If its as good as you make it sound, I will be there every year from here on out.

Warning: GenCon is highly addictive. I went for the first time in 2006, and kicked myself that I hadn't gone years sooner. Now that
I've been there, though, I can't imagine not going back so I find myself planning things like my family's summer vacation, and our budget for the
year, around it. After you've been there, you're in withdrawal for anywhere from a couple weeks to a couple months, then mostly okay for a couple
months, and then about January (if not sooner) you start getting antsy for another dose. I've never actually seen anyone get the shakes waiting for it, but
considering the rush to get into the hall when it officially opens on Thursday morning, you'd think the vendors really were selling drugs instead
of dice.